Most people who come across secondary materials written about Wikileaks have only a vague idea of what is happening to the world right now. Most people who go straight to the source know even less.
As an academic, one might listen to Julian Assange with the same sort of delight one feels when listening to one’s favorite piano sonata played live, with precision. A rarity. When we hear the piece performed with excellence, a sense of relief comes over us: Finally. This is not yet another mediocre talent.
He’s going to make mistakes but they’re not going to be devoid of all good sense. He’s going to get caught up in his newly-found fame now and then, but he’s not going to abandon his primary goals. He’s hungry and there’s lots of hunting to be done.
As a free thinker who abhors a following, it almost pains me to throw out compliments about Assange, but in some circles, the words are heavy in the air and need to be spoken: Knowledge is finally taking over. This is what Assange represents. Assange is not taking over but his ideals are. Those ideals are shared by many of our peers around the world today but they are not new. They have existed at least since the dawn of philosophy and science. In particular, these have existed since the first conscious being was able to articulate the concept of knowledge, which is unrestricted by trivial concerns and is free.
Kudos to the man and those like him. Assange is articulate, his statements are analytical and reflect cogent reasoning. The facts he discusses in response to loaded questions are actually relevant. Fallacies thrown at him are often identified as such before a speaker has even completed the sentence. His mind works quickly, and the steps in his reasoning have a rigorous logical order. It’s all very common in some circles, but those circles are quite small. In a perfect world, we all reason this way.
Don’t venerate the man but feel free to experience a massive sense of relief in the face of what this means: An intelligent and rebellious clan with good intentions and a charismatic speaker. The group is performing a takeover and the prize has no limit. The world has been taken out of the hands of a suppressed media and handed to a group of individuals who have become, by design, unstoppable. The world has yet to appreciate this fact, as can be judged from mainstream media reports. Make no mistake– cut off one source and three more will grow. Intelligent people with mainly good intentions are everywhere and multiplying.
Wikileaks Video of Iraq killings
The revolution taking place is centered on justice, truth and freedom. The underlying message is to ignore the emotional and political subtleties that detract from the truth; hold a “sword in one hand” but keep in mind that the fight is entirely based on the goal of justice;[1] exposing the truth is the first condition in that pursuit. No sound judgment can be made in the absence of facts–in the absence of all the facts, uncolored and untainted by the ambitions of humans who lust after power and sacrifice their young men and women for the elite classes by sending them out to war.
Hence the quote Assange alludes to, according to which soldiers are “contemptible drones”.[2] Of course, soldiers aren’t the real culprits. Their governments are. And these are the ‘elites’ in the distinction made between ‘popular’ opinion and elite opinion in Assange’s interview. While the masses are busy watching football, going to church and worrying about the afterlife, government executes its will for its own benefit. Wikileaks is exposes reality, even if not all will care to look or be capable of processing what they see.
And so the new trend of transparency opens up a level of inquiry we might never have thought possible. The ideals of thinkers like Michel Foucault and John Stuart Mill suddenly become thinkable, according to which those with power are the ones with knowledge; ideals according to which a citizen should be competent with the facts in order to vote for a national leader; no opinion should be silenced because the exchange of ideas is the only activity that distinguishes humans from lower animals. This is what we call freedom of expression in America, but that term must earn its meaning. Suppression of truth translates directly into the loss of freedom and humanity is nothing if not free by nature.
KE/KIF
_____________________
[1] Julian Assange July 10th, 2010, Retrieved July 29, 2010 from http://www.viddler.com/player/93992a5e
[2] ibid.
Anonymous Blogger
Big intellects are sexy = sexiness is contagious.
knowledgeempire
Yeah they’re sexy to other intellectuals. Just keep your clothes on and things should be fine!
Sidhe
You’ve put into words exactly my own sense of relief and hope I felt when I heard Assange speak for the first time.
knowledgeempire
And let’s not forget it.
Bruce M.
I’m going to read a lot of good articles with this site and of course the Gov’t’s exposed will retaliate.
Wikileaks is a silver lining in a cloud of worldwide corruption and tyranny.
knowledgeempire
No doubt this is a new kind of war. Those who haven’t realized this fact yet are in for a surprise. It’s not going to end corruption, but there are going to be far more victories for the good guy on this new tech-battleground. The intelligence simply isn’t there in government.
It will be like sending the best US footballers / soccer players out to play against the best Europeans. It simply isn’t an American sport and their best efforts won’t be enough for the final prize.
Clay Shentrup
An excellent piece.
If you are a propenent of Mill’s maximal welfare, then I submit to you that the reform with the greatest bang for the buck is upgrading our voting method to one with much lower Bayesian regret.
scorevoting.net/Mill.html
scorevoting.net/UniqBest.html
This is counter-intuitive, and efforts like those of Mr. Assange garner far more attention as they are more concrete and understandable. But make no mistake, the increase in social welfare associated with e.g. Score Voting and Approval Voting dwarfes pretty much any conceivable alternative reform.
For do-gooders like him, voting reform ought to become priority number one.
I recommend the William Poundstone book “Gaming the Vote”, for a deeper dive. Also, Assange fans might appreciate this
scorevoting.net/LivesSaved.html
knowledgeempire
Interesting, Clay. Is this from a dissertation?
bgausden
“ideals according to which a citizen should be competent with the facts in order to vote for a national leader;”
I’d suggest that having the facts and a citizen’s competency to draw “reasonable” conclusions from these facts are quite separate things. Placing data in the public domain without context and without a frame of competent/qualified discussion can lead to poor decision irrespective of the quality of the data itself.
To assume that the general public have the time, interest or capability to process the material provided by Wikileaks is unfortunately an assumption too far.
knowledgeempire
That’s a great argument for censorship: The people aren’t competent enough to digest and understand the facts, so only give them what you deem to be relevant and accessible.
If ‘the people’ are not given full autonomy respecting what they read, see and hear, then clearly that choice must lie with someone else. Who will make that choice for me? For you?
Your government?
Information, like knowledge, must be free.
Iain McIntosh
I am not going to lie I teared up a little reading this. I am going to send this to everyone I know because the truth needs to be spread.
knowledgeempire
It’s shocking how much you can get when you simply don’t relent in the face of opposition. History shows that the most successful revolutions have behind them not individuals with the most power or funding, but individuals who obsess after their goals to the very end. These people inspire us, and we feed off each other.
James
Pursuit of TRUTH starts with exposing 9/11 Assange will not have my respect until he addresses it.
http://www.buildingwhat.org http://www.ae911truth.org
Van Nuys
From a legal perspective, this is a very interesting case and I’m excited to see how it plays out in the courtroom. For one, will England extradite Assange? That’s the first step.